"Watching the Ministry" is based on Colossians 4:17, "Keep watching the ministry which you accepted ... that you fulfill it." This Blog is used to present information related to the beliefs and activities of Christian Witnesses of Jah: Christians who 1. bear witness to the biblical God "Jah" (Psalm 68:4) and 2. who accepte Jesus of Nazareth as the foretold "Messiah" from the writings of Moses and other ancient figures, and 3. who believe in treating others the way we want to be treated.

However, with all otherwise due deference to the site linked above for hosting images of these treasures, the site has also meaningfully hidden the greatest treasure, that is, the treasure within the text itself. While the actual images of these silver scrolls are fine (which is why I use this link to show them), the translation of their preservation of Numbers 6:24-26 (among other texts), three times using “Lord” rather than an actual form of the name used in these texts, is a great mistake in the representation of this God.

Further, at least one other popular site’s translation of these silver scrolls(last accessed on September 15, 2011) uses a form of the divine name (“Yahweh”) which is not at all based on the best available evidence, but which is nonetheless popular and used and misused in place of other, better forms of the name, including the Anglicized forms “Jah,” “Jaho(h),” “Jaho(h)-ah” and even the more popular “Jehovah” (see notes 3 and 6 on pages 2 and 4, respectively, in Chapter 1 of my Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Third Edition [available online here]).

The form of the name “Yahweh” is really in large part the product of inaccurate assumptions about the pronunciation and use of the divine name by ancient Jews of various periods, as well as the result of assumptions about the origin of the name itself. In fact, such a pronunciation of the name (“Yahweh”) contradicts nearly all known (certainly the best available) evidence having to do with the history of the pronunciation of the name by both Jews and non-Jews, of similar and different times, and in similar and in different locations. See, again, my Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Third Edition, Chapter 1, in particular pages 28-56; see also my more recent, “‘Christian’ Witnesses of Jah, Jaho(h)-ah God,”Watching the Ministry (April 2, 2011).

Christian Witnesses of Jah base pronunciations of the divine name on the best phonetic evidence; we do not assume anything (other than for convenience after already having presented our good reasons/evidence) about the forms of the name; we intend to consider what can be shown through credible means to be the best available evidence. Evidence which for the divine name involves multiple forms throughout history (three in ancient Hebrew/Aramaic alone [namely, YHWH, YHW, and YH]), but all of which can be traced through quite a reasonably accurate extent (better than many if not better than most other, similar ancient names’ histories can be traced) from ancient Semitic and other languages of the ancient world through to the present. That is why we should consider the best available evidence: It is very good and it is available!

I believe the best available evidence, which I have regularly presented (see the links throughout this article and also under “D, Divine Name,” in the Elihu Books Topical Index),supports by far the recently Anglicized form, “Jaho(h)-ah,” as the form which English speakers should use. It providesgreat utility to the user, allowing anyone to represent the pronunciation of all three of the best English pronunciations in this one form, namely, “Jaho(h)-ah” itself, “Jah,” and “Jaho(h),” the last of which is the least known form/pronunciation of the divine name, yet it is perhaps in line with the best available evidence, as explained most recently in my Addendum, “On the Use of ‘Jah,’ ‘Jaho(h),’ and ‘Jaho(h)-ah’ as Anglicized Pronunciations of the Divine Name,” a little past the middle of my online article, “‘Christian’ Witnesses of Jah, Jaho(h)-ah God.”

Each of the three forms of the divine name can be seen and pronounced appropriately, in a given language, just from just the use of the one form (in English), “Jaho(h)-ah.” That is why I try most often to use this form of the name, along with the already familiar form, “Jah.”

None of these phonetically based forms of the divine name require any disassociation of any of the verbal ideas otherwise and everywhere associated with the God of Moses in biblical and in any other accurately related histories. Compare R. Laird Harris, who also wrote the divine “Name is explained by the attributes of God revealed in the” Bible (see “The Pronunciation of the Tetragram,” in The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis, ed. John H. Skilton [Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1974], page 223). An assumed verbal root is not needed for the name that is, in fact, best supported by the available phonetic evidence and which name at all times, also, conveys all of this God’s “revealed” attributes to those who know him. These attributes are those so known or understood in relation to his person and to Jaho(h)-ah’s historical acts, such as those done through Moses and others including, we believe, Jesus of Nazareth. For reliable, historical evidence of the latter’s fulfillment of the role of biblical “Messiah” or “Christ,” see my online article, “Micah 5:1(2): Reliable Prophecy and Real Personal Preexistence,”Watching the Ministry (November 24, 2010).